The God of the Bible is not everyone’s Father, although He is everyone’s Creator. You hear it all the time: “We are all the children of God.” The words sound good to the ear, but we would be hard pressed to find them in the Bible.

To be one of His children, He must be our Father. He must father us, engender us.

The Pharisees of Christ’s day said that God was their Father. “We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.”

But Christ refuted them, “If God were your Father, you would love me…You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do…” (John 8:41-44). They said that they were children of God, but Christ said they were children of the “god of this world,” the devil. A stark contrast.

In the parable of the tares in the field, Christ says that “the good seed are the children of the kingdom, but the tares are the children of the wicked one” (Matt. 13: 38). Here He makes another stark contrast between them.

The origin of God’s children is “from above” while the devil’s children are “from beneath.” To those same Pharisees Christ said earlier, “You are from beneath; I am from above” (Jn 8: 23). The KJV in John 3: 3 should read, “Except a man be born from above” instead of “born again.” In John 3: 31 it is translated “from above.”

“Born again” gives the impression of a different kind of birth, a spiritual rather than the initial earthly birth. “Born from above” speaks of a point of origin opposite of our earthly beginnings. “From above” speaks of a spiritual realm in a heavenly dimension, a room in the Father’s heart that has already given birth to our new life.

Being “born from above” has really already happened in the Spirit’s heart. He now with much patience and longsuffering awaits our awakening to this truth, the news of which has already been hung in the halls of heaven.

For those pages of the book of life that contain our names are already written; we must now witness that fact. Yes, the fact of their existence, the fact that we are part of the good news, the gospel of God. Kenneth Wayne Hancock